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Busy morning for fire crews Yellowknife fire department responds to a house fire, a warehouse fire, and a vehicle fire Wednesday morning
Lyndsay Herman
Northern News Services
Friday, July 26, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Yellowknife was proof of the old adage 'bad things come in threes' on Wednesday morning as three unrelated fires were called in to the Yellowknife Fire Division within almost three hours of each other.
A city firefighter suits up at Melville Drive, the scene of an early morning warehouse fire on Wednesday. - Candace Thompson/NNSL photo
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"With three fires, it was a little crazy," said Dennis Marchiori, director of public safety for the City of Yellowknife.
The first, a house fire at 132 Ndilo, was called in at 3:16 a.m. The blaze originated in a container that appeared to be used for discarding cigarettes, according to the city.
The house's three occupants escaped without injury, along with their pet hamster, before fire crews arrived.
"It was a fire that started on the exterior of the building and it went up the siding and got into the roof," said Marchiori. "Firefighters were there for two and a half hours ... that one they got under control just after 6 a.m."
A news release issued by the City of Yellowknife stated 24 personnel responded with two engines, two tankers, two ambulances, one rescue unit and one command unit.
Just before 6 a.m. dispatch received another call regarding a vehicle fire in a parking lot across the street from the Goga Cho Building on 47 Street.
Fire crews found smoke wafting out of the back of a Nissan Xterra and the fire within was quickly suppressed, a city news release stated
At 6:23 a.m. the fire department received a third call, for a warehouse fire at Wilf's Renovations at 25 Melville Street in Kam Lake.
By then, crews had extinguished both the house fire in Ndilo and the vehicle fire downtown and all available personnel left these locations to respond to the warehouse fire.
The interior of the warehouse was fully ablaze when fire crews arrived, and heavy yellow and grey smoke was billowing from the building.
Crews were still trying to control the flames at 10:30 a.m., almost four hours later, but fire chief Darcy Hernblad was able to leave the scene between 9:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. to return to the fire hall and start reporting on all three fires.
"This was an extremely difficult fire to fight due to the structure being constructed mostly of metal," Hernblad stated in a news release on the warehouse fire. "This made the inside like an oven on the highest possible setting."
Marchiori said the metallic, Quonset-style warehouse was difficult to ventilate and as a result made getting the flames under control a challenge.
Crews cut holes in the warehouse to allow heat to escape and create more access points for fire crews.
Spray foam insulation was credited with the fire's rapid spread throughout the structure.
The cause of the warehouse fire was not yet determined by press deadline.
Marchiori said there is not likely any connection between the three fires.
"When things happen, they seem to happen in large waves so I think that's what's going on. But I wouldn't say they would be connected at this point in time," he said.
Both the RCMP and the fire marshal are investigating the vehicle and warehouse fires.
The RCMP is asking the public for any information which may be useful to the investigation.
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